


things left to flourish

by chartreuser



Series: the slow rebuilding [3]
Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Character Study, Established Relationship, M/M, Yavin 4
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-07
Updated: 2016-04-07
Packaged: 2018-05-31 16:37:00
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,064
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6477790
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chartreuser/pseuds/chartreuser
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Finn thinks: this is it. This is the ending he'd been trying so hard to survive for.</p>
            </blockquote>





	things left to flourish

**Author's Note:**

> so like obligatory thank you to alex and jayseeka and kristine for cheerleading me on while i finish this mammoth 
> 
> i know that the hype for stormpilot has dimmed down a lot and that a lot of people have moved onto other fandoms (myself half-included) but i planned this out as a trilogy and i was determined as fuck to finish it in the way that i felt i owed myself and LOOK GUYS I DID IT I FINALLY DID IT!!!!!!!!
> 
> if you haven't read any of the previous fics in this series i'd strongly recommend you do so! i mean i can't tell you what to do, right, but i don't think this will make much sense if you're only gonna read this individual one

The war crawls to a halt, and Poe says, “I guess that’s the end of it, then,” like the explosions his squadron has set off aren’t still-reverberating through his comms. It doesn’t feel anything like a conclusion, Finn decides. He’d thought that there would have been more relief, in the least.

“Time to leave,” Finn mumbles, staring blankly at the hologram in front of him, thinking all the while of a place he’s never been before. “How do you feel?”

“Angry,” Poe tells him, and Finn feels the weight of that key hanging from his neck, all the while waiting for his ship to land.

\--

Finn walks out to the hangar. He adjusts his uniform to make himself look presentable, and blinks once, twice. He’s not sure if he should really be flipping through the names in his head, now, slowly making through the casualties for a number. For everything to—tally; for the funerals he’d still need to hold.

He doesn’t make it through half of it before Black One lands. Poe surfaces with BB-8 in tow, and Finn only registers that he’s crying when his husband crumples to his knees before him, flight suit bloody with the remains of—someone else.

“Poe,” he says, voice cracking, kneeling to wrap his arms around him. His body is shaking, or maybe it’s just Finn’s, everything is blurry in a mess of tears, with everything in his sight locking onto Poe, stubbornly. His hands grasp tighter. _Blink once and he’ll slip through your fingers. Don’t look away._

Poe screams into his chest. There’s his body trembling and his mouth pouring wordless anger into his chest. There’s a wound at the back of his neck; it’ll fade away into a scar. His fingers dig into Finn’s suit, it’s ruined now, but he takes all of this in with selfish need, with the part of him that says, _maybe it was worth it, for him._ Presses his palms to Poe’s face, and celebrates in the shaky exhale that comes after. That little reminder that he still has what he needs.

“It’s over,” Finn tells him, and thinks of all the graves that they still have to dig.

\--

Finn knows: there are people dead and there are people still alive. It almost doesn’t matter which of them are his friends and which of them aren’t, he’d felt the anguish in his chest when his decision was made final. War is—sacrificial. You dig your courage out from the bottom of your lungs and leave it out for the rest to decide what they’ll do with it.

He’s not who he was before; Finn’s okay with that. Is long resigned to planting his hands into the muck of it with the inheritance of war. Someone needed to make the decision, it was right in the way that it was wrong and worth it in the way that none of this was in the first place. This is a burden that flows from leader to leader, and then it was his. Leia did it before him. Finn does it after her. _If there’ll be no more successors,_ Finn had thought, but made himself stop at that point.

“Tough spot,” he overheard someone saying. “Having all those lives in your hands.”

Finn agreed then, but it wasn’t just his hands, he realises. It was—the idea. The slow battle with the insisting voice that says, _don’t think about the people you left behind._

\--

The day she dies, Leia says, “General Dameron. _Finn._ Remember to forgive yourself,” before he gave her a strangled nod and slipped out of the room. He’d turned his head at the last moment, because he never had a mother and she was the closest thing she had, and saw,

Leia’s smile, directed towards him, tired but impossibly heartfelt, with all of her strength gone but her beauty remaining. Poe was clutching her hand and trying not to cry. “Hold onto your happiness,” she’d told him, and her voice grew dimmer as Finn walked down the hallway, where he stayed for Poe.

\--

He thinks about what she said. Gives eulogy after eulogy after eulogy, and tries so hard that he can barely feel his bones.

\--

(Finn cries during every single one, and stands with what little family each of his soldiers have left until they shuffle out. He refuses to be anything but the last person to leave. If it were on the table—he’d gladly exchange his life out, for every single one of them. All these lives in his hands, he thinks, and tries his hardest to remember what he’d managed to salvage.)

\--

“Let’s go home,” Poe tells him, and Finn feels his fingers wrapping around his hand, lifting to press a kiss on his knuckles. They’re at that same old place, beyond the hangar— but now there aren’t any ships left on there. Everyone else has moved their grief someplace else, another destination for the mourning.

“We won the war,” Finn says, voice shaky. “We outlived it.”

Poe looks at him—carefully, with his teeth caught in between his lips. _What is it_ , Finn wants to ask, but he’s not brave enough to hear an answer. He doesn’t look away, they’ve grown older but some things still say the same. Things, like: the curve of Poe’s jaw, the slope of his eyes. The pull that he has on Finn, the lingering introduction of, _I can fly anything_.

Finn leans in to press their lips together; they’d been finding excuses to hold this off. Maybe Finn wasn’t the only one that was afraid what this solution of a war would bring them. They’ll leave. They’ll move. They’ll be unemployed. Yavin 4 is not a military.

“That’s the thing,” Poe sighs, pulling away. Finn hears the insistence and the desperation and the heart poured out into these few words, “there’s still the outliving to do.”

\--

Poe doesn’t take Black One, when they leave for Yavin 4.

It was a few seconds before Finn had his answer. “Didn’t feel right,” Poe said, turning away, “taking the war back with me.”

 _What about me_ , Finn didn’t ask. _I was from the war too. I was made for it._

\--

Their trip to Yavin 4 is uneventful, if anything. Finn is tucked in the co-pilot seat, and BB-8 is quiet, for a change. Poe keeps his face blank, but there’s still a clench to his jaw. Finn leaves him to make his goodbyes in silence.

Finn looks downwards, and strains his eyes searching for their former base of operations, but he can’t find it, despite the fact that they’re only a few miles above the ground. Maybe Finn just wasn’t looking hard enough; D’Qar is already turning into a quick blur of colour, with everything melting together to form a hell of a view.

It’s not pretty. Some of the forests are blazing up; it seems that all their efforts of putting out the fire just didn’t manage to pull through, despite working on it for days. Finn supposes it doesn’t matter now, if he’s only going to run away.

Finn says so, and Poe turns to look at him. “Alright,” he says, but there’s something brittle about the word, with the thickness of those vowels dragging down between the both of them. “What are we running away from?”

\--

 _Responsibility,_ Finn thinks, a couple of hours later.

Poe kicks them into hyperdrive—and something tentative blooms on Poe’s face. Finn hopes that he’s finding solace in his own way. It’s been a few years of marriage, but this smile is new, it’s _easy_ , not as hopeful; the tension is seeping out of his shoulders and he looks younger, less like a man torn out of war.

Finn watches him. Watches the rest of it pass by, too, the universe speeding away into lines, into silhouettes. Then he realises; he’s never seen much of the world, only saw something new when he was on a diplomatic mission trying to talk things through, sort things out. He might be young now—but there’s a gap in his brain he didn’t even know he had to fill. Perhaps this is why Poe held onto that promise so much;

 _“you said you’d take me there,”_ Finn had said, all those years ago, staring back up into Poe’s eyes and wanting, thinking about Poe and all of his courage. There’s something catching in his throat and Finn chases away the sweet pain that’s crawling up his throat. With all the desperation he’d had for travelling back and all the gratitude for all of it to be over. Feels something ugly and scared writhing in his heart.

“Finn,” Poe says, with his eyes trained on him and his hand reaching for his arm, and Finn thinks, as fiercely as possible, _this man loves me_. “We’re—”

“Leaving,” Finn fills the gap for him, when Poe bites his lip and swallows hard.  There’s a tear rolling down from the corner of Poe’s eye, Finn leans over to wipe it away. He turns to press a kiss to the palm of his hand.

 “Next step forwards,” Poe breathes out, shakily, and Finn nods, relishing in the phantom weight of Leia’s hand, gripping his shoulder. Wants to know if she’s watching them carve the Resistance out from their pasts, wants to know what she thinks of it.

\--

There’s a key, dangling down from his chest. Finn’s become so used to it that the metal doesn’t feel cold to him, anymore, but it shocks him now, just with its existence. It makes everything feel—finalized. Finn has grown, has had the pain written into him, had the youth taken out of his body, but he still remembers the clutch of his hands, the consonants of Poe’s native language. How his tongue touches his upper teeth when he says, _I love you_. Knew how he sounded, once, with determination and hope and courage, for that chance of escaping death.

He reaches into his clothes, and tugs the necklace out. Catches Poe’s eye—and smiles, letting him press a hand into the back of his head to tug him forwards, for a kiss, for several more.

\--

It’s a smooth landing onto Yavin 4—but Poe Dameron’s the pilot, so of course it is.

“Ready?” Poe asks, although he seems just as nervous as Finn.

Finn shakes his head, and says, “not quite,” but extends his hand anyway. Poe grabs it, and presses a kiss to his knuckles. It’s the same dance they’ve been dancing for years. 

Poe leads him out of the ship, and it could be his hand trembling, or Finn’s. It doesn’t matter. The both of them fall to the ground on immediate contact, and Finn flips his body over to look over to Poe, who looks—calm. Not yet untroubled, but as if he could be getting there. The air rubs onto Finn’s skin, already sticky with perspiration, and he breathes in, tasting the few hints of rain on his tongue.

“I love you,” Poe says, matter-of-fact.

Finn reaches for his hand.

\--

They lie there for—hours, it seems. It could be just a blink of Finn’s eye. Could just be a few minutes.

But Poe rasps out, “so, we’ll just have to shoot something out of the sky, and maybe we can sleep on some leaves,” and Finn can’t help the foreign breath of laughter that makes its way out of his lungs.

“C’mon,” Poe says, standing up. “We’ve got some walking to do.”

Finn has a teasing complaint almost tumbling out from his lips, but swallows it down; Poe could’ve landed right outside his house with his eyes closed.

“Okay,” Finn agrees, and tackles Poe back onto the floor.

\--

The trees tower above him, and though Finn’s seen his fair share of jungles and forests and wild terrains; there’s something about the shade of it. Of how Finn could probably see the green even with his eyes closed, there’s all these sounds filtering into his ears, forming images, and Finn thinks: no wonder Poe is loud.

“How are you feeling,” Poe asks, when he realises that Finn’s been staring. “You doing alright?”

Finn snaps out of it a few seconds too late. “I am,” he says. “Are you?”

“Yeah,” Poe says, looking so overwhelmed that Finn almost wants to lead him back into that ship, but they’re both standing on Yavin 4 and _breathing_ , and they’ll live out whatever they have left within the breadths of these jungles, their jungles, and Finn thinks that maybe he’ll be enough.

Finn says, “you have a leaf in your hair,” and plucks it out before pulling Poe into a hug, tight against his chest, hearing the laughter against it, sensing the tears that come after.

\--

Poe says that it’s five hours before they reach the house. Finn feels it already, the aches in his spine, but it’s also his first day on Yavin 4, and he doesn’t complain about it, though Poe slows down anyway. He’s dragged through the swamps, in between the spaces of trees and away from them. They don’t see anyone for miles, and Finn thinks about the scars on his body, about his old helmet and that TIE fighter and that old name, all buried under sand.

“I never expected this,” Finn tells him, and doesn’t elaborate, Poe knows him enough.

\--

They’re halfway through when Finn mentions, “bet you climbed a lot of trees, when you were a child,” getting a quick shock of a laugh in response.

Poe says, “I did,” and crowds him up against a tree, his eyes crinkling at the corners, and _fuck_ , Finn realises that they’re both running on barely any sleep but it’s this moment that he’s been waiting for; the one where Finn can finally fucking slow down and think, _this is the stifling, suffocating heat, this is the start of it,_ with the few beginnings of rain falling down on him, turning into a storm within the matter of seconds.

Finn grins, cheekily. “You’re all wet,” he says.

Poe winks at him, and licks into his mouth, tasting sweet. It’s Yavin 4, Finn thinks. It’s the wildness of where they’re at, where everything is near-primitive but _beautiful_ , with not enough life forms present to truly do any damage.

“Two and a half hours to go,” he mentions when they pull apart, a hand curved possessively around Poe’s neck.

“Can you wait long enough until then,” Poe jokes.

Finn shrugs. “I’ve been waiting a few years,” he reminds him. “I have the patience for a few hours more—and we’ve got time. I’ve got time. I’ve got the rest of my life.”

\--

“We’re here,” Poe says, after they reach, albeit redundantly. “We gonna do this?”

Finn holds the key in his hand tighter. “Sure we are,” he says, and unlocks the gate.

\--

(The tree’s the first thing that Finn sees.)

\--

He’d seen it before; the strength of it, sprawling, a quick sensation when he closes his eyes in the dead of the night, back in D’Qar. It’s nothing how he thought it’d look like (it’s everything he expected).

“That’s a big fucking tree,” Finn says, and lets it pull him forward, hands spread out on the bark as he registers the energy of it, thrumming.

Poe’s still watching him. Still careful. “You feel anything about it?”

“Yeah,” Finn says, and presses his fingers together, savoring the electricity. “History. A healing wound.”

\--

“Home at last, huh,” Kes says, and holds them both in a hug.

Finn feels himself smile wide at him, all teeth.

“We missed you,” Poe says, and Finn has his heart race with the inclusion; there are some things that he will never start taking for granted.

 Kes’s face softens. “I know,” he says. The rain soaks them down to their feet, heavy; but they stand there anyway, three people wrapped up in each other— _family_ , Finn thinks.

“It’s a long way back from war,” Kes warns, when everything has yet to stop blurring. It’s all indistinguishable. Finn doesn’t mind; it’s a new planet.

\--

“I want this,” Poe says, when the downpour is finished and they’re both in their room, now, the sky darkening. “Do you?”

Finn turns to him. Stares at the shadows that his eyelashes cast, and settles for honesty. “I don’t know.”

“What do you want,” Poe questions.

 _A fresh start_ , Finn almost says. He thinks it’s not quite right. “Whatever there is,” Finn changes his answer. “Everything we have left.”

\--

People don’t expect this from an ex-stormtrooper, but Finn knows numbers. Is comfortable with them lodged in his head; he used to be top of the line, once, of everything—he has the answers.

He’s not a saint. There are things that he has done, and Finn wants to be prepared for the blame, when it comes to: _how many ships went down in battle? Did you know the names of all those squadrons, wiped out? What about the size of the galaxies you gave up? Would you feel guilty about it? What would Leia say?_ _How many people did you let them kill?_

 (Or: _have you tried repenting for it?_ )

\--

Finn spends a few hours staring into the ceiling, his eyes trained on its blankness. He relishes the simplicity of some things, now. Reach out far enough and it’ll be there. Go around something and you’ll be able to keep moving. Hold it tighter to your chest and no one will know how to ever make you let go.

Poe’s beside him, with his legs stretched out and his gaze downturned. He’s quiet, too, right until he flips over, legs on each side of Finn.

“I want to know what you’re thinking,” he demands.

Finn blinks up at him. “I’m thinking about you.”

“Really,” Poe says, his voice dropping down low, supporting himself with one hand as he leans close enough for their lips to barely brush. “Prove it.”

Finn laughs, but he wraps his hands around Poe’s thighs and flips them over anyway. “I’ll be happy to do that,” he grins, and kisses him on the mouth, licking his way in. Poe is—the way Poe Dameron is, just as usual, receptive and insistent and impossibly warm to the touch, which is to be expected, since they’re on Yavin 4.

“You alright?” Poe asks, when he pulls away a few seconds later, brows furrowing. They’re in the dark—they’re used to the darkness, now, him and Finn—but Finn can still detect the concern in his expression; Poe’s always been an open book, even when Finn was just turning his back on the First Order, even with his limited understanding of how to read people.

But the novelty of looking at Poe never really washes away. It’s not to say that he never changes—because Poe does, all the time, so quick and fast in his split second decisions that Finn is overwhelmed with their generosity. He’ll circle back down to planets burning down, he’ll dive in headfirst if it means getting the rest of his squadrons out.

Finn breathes in, and says, “I’m okay,” even though what he means to say is: _are you?_

“Good,” Poe grins, and yanks Finn down to kiss him, fierce. One hand drops down to press itself against Finn’s stomach, trailing upwards, and Finn hisses, shrugs off his shirt to toss it onto the ground. Poe’s a solid block of warmth underneath him, getting hotter by the touch, and Finn lets him flip their positions back again.

Poe looks awfully gleeful. “Now I get to do this to you,” he says, “in my own damned house.”

Finn’s breath hitches. “Sounds like you were going to throw me down in the front yard and have your way with me,” he teases.

Poe raises an eyebrow. “I _could._ ”

Finn laughs, watching him strip down to nothing as Poe grinds against the hard line of his erection, all the while holding his gaze. “Well, if _you_ think it’s a good idea—”

“—let’s just save the thought for later,” Poe interrupts, making Finn’s chuckle die down to a gasp, sliding down to undo his trousers, his mouth easily opening up for his cock, taking most of it in.

“Poe,” Finn says, and he hears his voice straining, hears the roughness of the name, “I just want—”

“—fuck me,” Poe pulls off of his cock, sitting back with his thighs sprawled invitingly wide. Finn feels like he’s about to get a heart attack, or combust into flames—it’s ridiculous, it’s barely the first time Poe’s asked Finn to fuck him— “I brought lube. Made myself ready for you in the shower.”

“Oh.”

Poe rolls his eyes. “ _Oh_ , is right.”

Finn hums. “I don’t know,” he mutters, running a hand alongside Poe’s thigh. “I’d much rather see you fuck yourself, if it’s all the same. Want to see you get all hot and bothered for it.” He squeezes him a little, watching Poe’s eyes darken, taking in the flutter of his eyelashes, the subtle flush of his cheeks.

“Finn,” Poe moans, his hands burning into Finn’s neck where he’s holding them upright, “don’t make me ask again.”

He’s sliding his hand down Finn’s back, now, another wrapped around his shoulder—and he really shouldn’t taunt him, not at a time like this, when they’re both running high on exhaustion, with their emotions threatening to spill out of their hands, their bodies—but Finn’s always liked to rile him up before they fuck. Poe’s always— _calm_ , incredibly so, and oddly collected even if he seems incredibly cheerful, that the curiosity in Finn always takes over.

Poe bites down on his lips. Finn can see the imprints his teeth leaves when Poe surges up to him, shuddering, his mouth almost closing down on Finn’s lips when he rasps, “please?”

“Okay,” Finn breathes out, his hand coming up to cup Poe’s face, trying for comfort, “I’ve got you,” and then he presses a finger into Poe, the lubrication smoothing the way, and Poe must have overdone it, really, because it’s all slick and wet and maybe a bit too much, but Finn doesn’t quite care.

Poe’s eyes flicker to his, impatient. “You won’t be able to keep on saying that, if you keep up at this rate.”

Finn pretends to be offended, which is hard, admittedly, considering that Poe is filled with three of his fingers, crooking slightly. Poe’s breath stutters, now, and Finn can see the subtle movements of his throat when he swallows, his mouth parting beautifully when Finn rubs a thumb over his bottom lip. “I wouldn’t be too sure about that,” he says, and dives to kiss him, as fiercely as he can.

\--

“You good?” Poe asks, slumping down against the front of him.

Finn smiles. “Yeah,” he says, after he regains his breath. “Are you?”

\--

A new morning arrives, before Finn is aware of it. Poe could leave him here to adjust to the unfamiliarity of it, but he doesn’t. It’s all out of place. Everything is a new routine he has to settle into.

He’s looking out of the window, shoulders tense. Finn wants to kiss away the scars that mark the bulk of his body, just for the sake of trying. It hits him now, the quiet panic that he’ll be able to wipe away his war; what he’s done. What he didn’t do.

“Good morning,” Finn says instead.

Poe turns to look at him, then, backlit by the sunlight. He looks unreal; just like one of the stories that Finn secretly read, once, safe in the privacy of his own bunk, another lifetime away. He looks like something Finn doesn’t deserve.

“Morning,” Poe says, sliding himself into the gap between Finn’s legs, where he’s sitting on the bed. There’re still bruises on his body. Dark patches of pain on his arms, his torso. The wounds are still healing. Something about Poe is sharper, with the hint of a knife’s edge, and Finn wonders if it’ll ever die down, or if Poe will keep on hurting.

Finn takes a deep breath. Five more. “What do you have in mind?”

Poe shrugs. Lifts Finn’s hand to press a kiss to his knuckles, it’s the same old gesture but it never fails to slow him down. Maybe this is what Finn needs. Maybe it could be what he deserves. “Want me to bring you around?”

“Okay,” Finn rasps out.

Poe bites his lips, tapping his fingers absentmindedly. “A few years of marriage,” he whispers, “and you still look at me like that.”

“Not a bad thing, is it,” Finn jokes, but the tone comes out flat.

Poe’s lips are on their way to a half-smile. Finn can see the hesitance seeping out of his eyes, the way that he measures distance, calculates strategies. It’s the same look he had when Finn had tried to break them out. _You need a pilot. I need a pilot_. Everything was laid out for him from the start. This was what he needed.

Except: Finn wants to know. Wants to learn about Poe in contexts out of war. A few years of marriage spent battling your deaths will never compare to the sunlight diffusing through the windows as Poe stands in between his legs.

“I love you,” Poe finally says. Finn has heard those words strung together into a simple phrase a thousand times over. He promised, in the days before their wedding, that he’ll never get tired of it. It rings true.

“I love you too,” Finn says.

\--

_Have you tried repenting for it?_

\--

This is what he learns: Poe eats his breakfast lying down, like the five-year old he is. Kes looks over to Finn with exasperation but the corners of his mouth crinkles when his son aims a fruit at his head. He seems to eat more on Yavin 4, inhaling everything that Kes cooks for him; he shows his affection with wide arms and softer smiles. He laughs with his teeth bared, just like before. The humidity makes him looser the same way he melts into the grass where they’d sit for hours. It’s a new angle; it’s the same one.

\--

“What do you think happens afterwards,” Poe asks.

Finn blinks up at him, from where he’s helping Kes with the dishes. “I don’t know.” His throat clenches around it. He thinks that a war could be coming afterwards; the way conflict always arises in the tight aftermath of everything, something small could always have slipped by. There’ll be a person that Finn’s tactics haven’t killed, they’ll be out for vengeance. War starts again.

Except: no one would know how to look out for the pieces that fall through. Finn was an anomaly the First Order didn’t care to expect. They wanted him to scrub the dirt off their floors and maybe grow into something more. He wiped their planets out instead. Scrubbed away the officers who took him from a family he’ll never get to know.

 _Because it’s the right thing to do_ doesn’t quite cut it out anymore, somewhere along the line it turned into: _it’s the thing that needed to be done_ –and now someone else could take that mantle up. Use his excuse for another massacre, wipe away a hundred thousand soldiers. Think that it was something good.

Finn also knows—this is all up in the air. Finn had tried to chase away his ugly side of humanity but that didn’t take. Maybe what he’s done would have an impact. Maybe not. His actions are, for the moment—inconsequential. But that doesn’t mean forever.

“I think,” Finn says, licking his lips, “that it doesn’t matter.”

\--

Finn has numbers, sequences, coordinates— seared into the back of his mind. They stay there, because there’s nothing left in those places, nothing left of the people he’d sent. He remembers their names. The pilots wore helmets but Finn knows the way they looked underneath them.

Part of being a general was holding their faith in him. Trying his best to shape the future with casualties, heart hurting with the blaster wounds they carried in battle. He wants to go back and join them in the debris,

except there’s no point in seeking out forgiveness from the people who already do not belong. Everything is in equal parts pain and relief. The future hangs in the balance, still negotiated by the past—but it’s also the history that haunts Finn. He wonders if he should let the wound scab.

\--

“I’m actually not quite sure what to show you,” Poe says. He looks like he’s about to swallow his teeth.

Finn’s about to wave him off, tell him to relax, but he sees the look on Poe’s face and relents. “Show me what I need to know,” he says. “We have the rest of our lives for everything else.”

They’re standing in a half-familiar place. Same trees, towering. It’s right kind of weather that makes him melt from the inside out, the green air clinging to his skin.

Poe takes his hand, starts walking. “I want to make sure you love it,” he says.

Finn rubs his thumb across Poe’s knuckles. Sees the quick dart of his body as he moves out of a tree branch at the last second; he’s so comfortable here that Finn’s heart twists with the stale joy of it. Ask Finn what would make a home for Poe and he’d tell you the air. Ask him what he thinks of it now and it _could_ be:

~~the disruptive non-silence sounding up in the midst of all these trees; kes’s silhouette against the backdrop of their kitchen, ancient and rusting but still a relic in the making. a giant tree looming, casting shadows the both of them are eager to reside in. it’s the dirt, too, the green foliage. not just the sky.~~

whatever makes him look younger than he is, grin slung high on his face. Like Finn’s early years on D’Qar, a belief in a promise made then—and its fulfillment years later.

\--

Finn _desperately_ wants this to be where the war ends.

\--

“I fell off that tree, in this spot. Hurt my elbows and cried so hard, Pa heard me a distance away. He took me to the doctor, carried me the whole way. Turns out I broke a good deal of things in my body.”

Finn hums. “Doesn’t explain where all your recklessness comes from.”

“Pain is easier to forget when you’re young,” Poe says. Looks at Finn with his eyes careful; some things really do never change. “Not so much when you’ve got things to cherish. People to live for.”

\--

They walk until their legs burn. The heat warms up Finn’s spine, and he’s grateful for it.

Kes said: _I know how it feels to watch them go_. He didn’t mention how it felt to watch them at their happiest. Everything is glowing softly at the bottom of his lungs, warming up the rest of his body with contentment. Sometimes Finn’s afraid; he wonders about waking up twenty-five in the gutters of the First Order, learning how to breathe in chemicals, unlearning everything else. Maybe Kes never told him because he’d wanted Finn to find out for himself. Maybe he never told him because he didn’t want Finn to hang on for something that never was. Maybe Kes never told him because it wasn’t his to tell.

“Did you know,” Finn says, quietly, knowing that it’ll catch Poe’s attention regardless, “that Yavin 4 will never snow?”

“I do,” Poe says, and stops walking; he looks like he understands.

Finn takes a deep breath. He remembers needing the dig down into his heart, the first few weeks of being together—and searching for any trace of himself. Finn doesn’t want to do that, anymore. Wants to pull out the years he has left instead, and say: _this is all I’ve got. I’d give the rest of it to you._

\--

It’s the first few drops of rain that startles Finn. The rest of the downpour flushes down onto the both of them after a moment; it’s a different kind of excitement than what Finn knew in the Resistance.  

“Sure does rain a lot here,” he says.

Poe laughs. Almost slips on the wet mud underneath him, if it weren’t for Finn’s arms, wrapped around his torso. Says, “it’s another thing to get used to.”

Finn watches the imprints Poe’s teeth leave on his lower lip. “You know I don’t care about that.”

Poe breathes out. Something loosens inside of him when he tells Finn: “but I do.”

\--

They let the rain soak them through.

\--

It’s a loud sound; the patter of rain falling onto the leaves above their heads when Finn presses Poe against the bark of a tree, and kisses him until the rest of the world falls silent.

\--

If Finn tries hard enough—he can hear Poe’s heartbeat, thumping softly in his own mind. Not from his direction—but from the back of his skull, quiet in his veins. It’s just there, glowing softly; an undercurrent beneath everything. All natural. Perhaps it’s the tree in the backyard. Perhaps it’s something that Finn had imagined up.

“I feel like I could hear what you’re thinking, sometimes,” he tells Poe. “Like all I would need to do was reach out.”

Poe asks, “why don’t you?”

Finn halts. Lets the question simmer in his brain before coming up with an answer, he wants to get this right. “I’m just not that kind of person.”

“I know,” says Poe. “You always had too much heart in you, Finn.”

“That’s not—” Finn shuts his mouth, and revises his words. “I did, maybe. Once.”

Poe presses his palm to his cheek. Finn can taste the rain like this, cold and sliding down his face, but it’s another story at this point of contact, at the callouses against his face as Poe leans in to press their foreheads together. They were like this even when they were young.

“You’re not the only one with blood on your hands, you know?” Poe says, gentle. He feels the sigh that he lets out.

Finn swallows. “I know,” he says. “That’s the worst part about it.”

\--

“Do you think she’d be proud of us?” Poe asks, hands fisted in his shirt. It doesn’t really hurt Finn—it’s a good idea, in fact, because Finn feels like he could be pulled out of everything. That he’d wake up one day and be itching to wipe the walls sterile.

“She would,” Finn tells him. “She’d be happy to know that we’re—alive. Still surviving, getting past the war. She’d want that.”

“I wish she was here,” Poe says. “So that she could at least know.”

Finn untangles the fingers digging into his chest, and holds them still until they stop trembling.

\--

When they get home, with the first symptoms of the flu, Poe goes to the shed where Shara’s things are kept. Kneels in front of the old box, eyes wavering. Brings out his mother’s helmet to run his fingers through the cracks, and where the print is peeling off; it’s a slow fade into the metal grey.

“I miss them,” Poe tells him, and Finn reaches to hold him as he cries.

\--

“I miss Rey, too,” Finn whispers.

\--

~~Have you tried repenting for the lives you lost from your hands?~~

~~haveyoutriedhaveyoutriedhaveyoutriedhaveyoutriedhaveyoutriedhaveyoutried~~

_~~Did~~ _ ~~you repent for it?~~

\--

Finn’s standing in front of the tree when Kes walks up to him, a warm drink in his hand.

“The novelty doesn’t wear off, does it,” he says, jerking his head towards its direction, holding out the cup. “Commander Skywalker, he gifted it to Shara. We planted it here, because, well. I’d thought that it’d be nice to have something to remember them by.”

Finn smiles. “I dream of it, from time to time. It’s—Poe’s got some vivid memories of it.”

“Does he,” Kes looks back at him, considering.

Finn shrugs, understanding the implications of those words. It’s just that he doesn’t think it makes much of a difference.  “Your son dreams a lot about flying.” _And crashing, too,_ Finn doesn’t say. _About pulling down the lever at the wrong time or never being able to get away. He dreams of—of you, Leia, your wife. Of me._

“He and his mother both,” Kes says, and Finn closes his eyes. He doesn’t know who she was, in all honesty, only having holograms and stories to base an impression on—but it’s stressful, wanting to impress a person who’s already dead.

\--

“You know,” Kes says, breaking the silence that drapes over the both of them, “it’s a pretty big thing, coming back from something like that.”

Finn looks up at him.

“Being a veteran isn’t easy, son,” he says. Slings an arm around Finn’s shoulders. “We didn’t fight our war so that you children had to fight your own—this wasn’t a responsibility all of you were supposed to inherit. But maybe having it again will mean something else, this time, huh?”

\--

Poe is stretched out on the grass, the rise and fall of his chest imperceptible.

“I miss it,” Poe tells him, eyes slowly blinking wide. “The certainty of everything. There’s not really anything to be sure about, now.”

Finn slides down to the ground himself, and Poe scoots over to rest his head in his lap. Finn threads his fingers through Poe’s hair.

“What about us,” he asks.

Poe tenses up beneath his hands. “That’s a given,” he says, and his voice doesn’t waver.

“Then it’s good enough for me,” Finn tells him.

\--

He doesn’t know how much time has passed when Poe says, “this place suits you, I think,” and it’s a testament to how Finn has already forgotten how it was to be a commanding officer in the military; he’d never have let himself lose track of time.

“It’s the heat,” Finn tells him. “Makes everything softer.”

Poe laughs. It’s a little bit hoarse, like he’s been crying. “You, General Dameron? Soft?”

Finn reaches down to lace their hands together. He says, “I’ve always been soft on you. It used to be more difficult, before. When we didn’t have a good enough grasp on anything, but it’s become easy, somewhere along the way.”

\--

The sunlight’s warm when Poe tugs him down for a kiss.

\--

If someone asked Finn if escaping a military only to join another was worth it—he would say _yes, yes it was, even without Yavin 4_ —there’s an image, a small part of him, still stuck on the patch of grass that Poe brought him to when he was freshly released from Medical. He’s watching the ships take off from the hangar, the pilots barely visible, the sun eclipsed by the D’Qar Resistance base; Poe's snoozing lightly beside him, BB-8 quiet. Rey’s on his comms, making him laugh about something crude that she overheard from one of the other pilots, probably from Poe’s squadron.

Maybe it was that singular moment that defined things for him, the way that Poe fought so hard to hold onto his idealism.

Because Finn had recognised it before. It was there when he struggled out of the Stormtrooper helmet and fought to disconnect that part of his life, thinking hard about his loyalty to the First Order and what he wanted to do with it, with all of his statistics and his potential. It was there when he refused to pull the trigger when he could have helped it, the warning ringing loudly in his mind: war is a burden to carry. The people you decide to kill is another.

(Were Nines and Zeroes still alive? For all the childhoods they hadn’t lived together, for the villagers that Finn refused to murder, did they survive, in the end? Or had Finn made sure that they died as numbers, too?)

\--

_Did you **try** ————————_

Finn shuts down the thought: it’s guilt, well deserved.

\--

Poe brings him to visit his mother’s grave. It’s nondescript, plain. Finn wonders if there are any memorials built in her honor anywhere else; if there aren’t, there should be. Leia’s told him about her before, about her accolades, her daring. How her son was practically a carbon copy of her.

“I did it for her,” Poe tells him, hand wrapped up in Finn’s own. “I did. I felt like it was my responsibility.”

“Heavy word,” Finn says.

He stares down at the grave, and lets Poe hold on as tightly as he needs to. “I think she’d—”

“Understand?”

Poe’s jaw unclenches. “Yeah,” he says, wearily. “That it’s not just in the name of something, you know? We were trying to make a difference, too.” He looks worn out, like he wants to go back to D’Qar and undo everything, maybe. Return to his X-wing and get a few more people out, reduce the damage the Resistance had caused in the first place.

“Hey,” Finn says, after a moment. “I think about it, too. About the bodies we never got around to burying.”

“I know,” Poe says, and something about it rings true.

\--

“I love you,” Poe says, when they’re on their way back home. It’s a long trek from here; Finn suspects that Poe chose the location based on the altitude, the way that you could look out over everything and see the life flowing through the jungles, the wind ruffling the leaves.

Finn bumps his shoulder into Poe’s. “I know,” he tries to grin, “thank the stars you do.”

It’s a good place to be buried. Finn wants to spend the rest of his life out here, no matter how old he’ll be—the war has trained that into him, now. It’s hard to get rid of the lingering questions of his own mortality, even if he managed to leave behind the rest of the war.

(Lives come at a cost. They’re built on the losses of everyone else’s, stacking up higher and higher as the years go by; it’s a fault of time, it’s their own. Behind every selfish thought sits a selfless deed by someone else.)

Poe halts in his step—and Finn watches the way he tilts his head, considering something. He’s looking back at him, eyes dark. Runs a hand over his stubble before he turns back to Finn, saying, “come on. I want to show you something.”

\--

They end up standing in front of the remains of an old ship—it’s about a few decades old, judging by how the plants grow around it, curling around where the windshield was supposed to be. The controls are mostly gone, and the cockpit is shattered—but the size of it is still massive, no smaller than an A-wing.

“This was me at sixteen,” Poe tells him, “almost lost my life.”

Finn can’t imagine it now, the idea of a ship losing its function in Poe’s hands, propelled out of the sky. It’s as odd as facing a younger him and making him believe: _you’re going to run away someday, for a reason you won’t find yourself upholding. You’re going to run and everyone you know will die in your hands._

“But you made it,” Finn says. “Didn’t we, Poe?”

“We did,” Poe says. “I was—sobbing. Bleeding out. I thought for a moment that I could see my mother, if I’d let myself drift off, lose consciousness. But it seemed aimless, and for all I’d missed her, it seemed like I was missing out on something else, something bigger. It was a hunch, and it wasn’t anything substantial, but it’s true. Things happen once you live long enough. I genuinely thought, at that time, that the war was over. That the bulk of us wouldn’t have to do anymore fighting, that it was a deal struck and done, but.”

“But?”

Poe sighs, “but another one happened, didn’t it? Or you could say that it never stopped. Then we fought our part, and now we’re standing here, where I should've died. I could have been buried here but I wasn’t. We could have refused to kill them but we hadn’t. We could live out the rest of our lives, Finn, and maybe this peace will last, but it’s not a guarantee. The casualties? If we hadn’t gunned them down, if we left those planets intact, could you promise me that the First Order would have did the same?”

Poe swallows, pulling Finn’s hand to his mouth to give his knuckles a kiss. “You’re not— _we’re_ not selfish for wanting to live, are we? The war didn’t happen just because we chose to participate in it. Our hands aren’t bloodless because we couldn’t get past all of that with them clean. We tried our hardest. Everyone else did, too. It’s why we’re still alive, it’s why—for the moment—that there aren’t children abducted right now, forced to grow in conditions that prepared them for killing. Nothing would be done without a war fought.”

He says, “maybe another will happen. But it’s a reprieve. If we need to we’ll go back, and maybe we’ll be another one of those bodies our descendants won’t get to dig a grave for. Just a memorial held, or completely forgotten.  We fought our fight. We won the war. I could have died here but I’m glad I didn’t. If I died in any one of those battles—I’d think that it was worth it if I did. But you have remember, Finn, that the dead don’t suffer. It’s the living that does.”

He says, “but it’ll be worth it, Finn, I promise. Someday you’ll wake up and understand that all of us were ready for death.”

Poe’s hand is lingering on his face now, brushing away his tears, and Finn looks back when he breaks the silence.

“I guess we just have to give it time. Let everything settle.”

\--

“I'm thinking that you’d want to be buried here, too?” Finn asks.

Poe shrugs. “Hell,” he says, “I don’t really care. Bury me next to you, beside you, under you, anywhere. Doesn’t even have to be on this planet.”

“You’re a fucking sap,” Finn tells him, laughing even with his face still wet.

Poe raises his eyebrows and says, “you love me,” and it’s true.

\--

They’re lying on the hammock by the tree when Finn tastes it, the sweet air that comes after a bout of rain. He’s somehow neglected it before, the freshness of it, although the moisture in the air was always something he was aware of. It’s just odd, learning something new about this planet everyday, even though Finn hasn’t had the chance to explore much of it yet, has barely touched it for all he knows. But it’s going to be a pleasure to learn.

\--

“It feels so good to know I could come back here,” Poe says, although Finn doesn’t know if he’s sleeptalking or if he’s addressing Finn. “Like the tree was watching over me, all this time.”

\--

This isn’t something that Finn is new to, but:

When Poe kisses him, legs wrapping around his and eyes warm, Finn thinks that his heart only gets heavier with this affection, in the way that people might get addicted to substance. It just feels like something he can’t have and everything he can’t get enough of all at once, like learning to love someone even more could crack his lungs open, make it hurt to breathe. It feels that way sometimes, the knowledge that he could have lost Poe once, could have lost sight of the his tracker on the hologram, could have needed to unlearn the slope of his jaw, the shape of his lips. He’s not stupid: you could love someone with all your heart and still manage to lose them in war (he has).

It’s just—daunting. To know that two men pulled out of war still pulled through. That swinging lazily in the post-rain wind in a jungle secluded away from where all the action used to be was ever going to happen, that you could close your eyes and not have to worry about living the next day; Finn thinks he’s lucky, that maybe he’ll just have to ride this out to make it worth it, that maybe living as aggressively much as he can could be his very own way of repenting.

\--

(Finn doesn’t bother much with it, but the Force is—intoxicating. It’s thrumming in his veins and he can feel it, has always felt the heat of it whispering promises, promising power. He knows why people get too lost in the Force and he _understands_ , it’s easy to lose sight of what wielding this power means but this isn’t _Finn_ , no matter how much the tree calls to him. It’s of the same family that used to grow in the midst of a Jedi temple, but this isn’t Finn’s role; he has no interest in bothering to harness it, although he could certainly try. He doesn’t want anything to do with it. Wants to let it slip by him, let everything lay low. There’ll be other people who grow up attempting to wield it, but Finn is past that curiosity, past the age. Just wants to mellow slowly into the background, having already what he wants. Leia used to tell him: it’s a balance—but Finn thinks he already has that in his life. That growing old by Poe Dameron will be more than enough, until responsibility calls for him— _then_ he’ll answer. But not yet.)

\--

"She loves you," Finn tells him, when Poe slowly shakes himself awake, blinking hard at that tree. "I can feel it."

Poe smiles at him, bright as the sun, and Finn thinks that this could be the only thing that he’ll ever bother using the Force for.

\--

It all feels like an ending.

\--

They’re both standing by the window, watching the rain fall when Finn turns to Poe, in the manner that he always does, studying Poe study the sky. It’s a routine, really, that Finn has accepted early on, inserting himself into Poe’s life as the audience, taking the back seat. Except he turns _now_ , and Poe’s not watching the sky, he’s watching— _him_.

“Why do you look so surprised,” Poe asks, a smile playing at the corners of his lips. “Don’t tell me you’re not used to me looking, by now.”

Finn feels his cheeks heating up—it’s ridiculous, how _long_ have they been married—and turns away, rolling his eyes. “I’m used to sharing, remember? With your old X-wing.”

Poe’s eyes turn sharp, then, almost suddenly. Finn stills.

“Finn,” he says, carefully, after a few seconds, “you _know_ it’s not a competition, right?”

Finn raises an eyebrow at him. “I _guess—_ ”

“No,” Poe interrupts, looking strangely hurried, and Finn shuts up. “Finn, it’s. I know it seemed like flying is the only thing I cared about, but that’s not true. I was scared, and it was. You were there, you know? You were always at the forefront of my mind, and if—you thought that all of that made me love you any _less_ , then I’m sorry. But some things—like flying, like _you_ , for instance—you feel it down here,” he points to Finn’s chest, right where his heart is, “you know? It’s a part of you.”

Finn fights the grin down. “I accept your apology,” he says, although he's drawing Poe in, holding a hand to his face as he leans in for a kiss, for another. He smiles all throughout it, and Poe’s smiling back so hard that he’s not sure if they're even kissing at this point.

“I love you,” he says, and reaches for Poe’s hand just for the sake of it. For holding on.

\--

Poe says, “I want to take you someplace else.”

“Where,” Finn asks.

“Everywhere,” Poe says, and lifts their hands to place a kiss to Finn’s knuckles.

Finn smiles back. “An overdue honeymoon?”

Poe blinks up at him, exhaustion slowly creasing into the edges of his eyes. “Not really,” he says. “Just fulfilling a promise.”

\--

“I’m proud of the both of you,” Kes says, standing beside Finn as they watch Poe configure the ship in their backyard. “The both of you—the Resistance—changed the world, and it’s not easy, son, but what is?”

Finn looks away. “I still don’t know if it’s worth it,” he confesses. “Peace for another few years.”

Kes nods, putting his hand on Finn’s shoulder. “I know about the guilt,” he says. “Can’t help thinking of it, too, some days. But this vision of a new world—it’s not for the dead, is it? As hard as that fact is to swallow, they’re gone. They don’t get the choice to determine if what the Resistance has done was worth it.”

“It still feels like I should be doing something," Finn says, only choking on the words a little.

Kes smiles at him—it’s a little sad, a little worn out, but it’s bright. Maybe Poe is more similar to his father than he thinks. “You will,” he tells him, “you’ll get the chance to. It’s all in due time; you can’t push some things. I know you fought this war for peace. It’s not your fault you want to celebrate it, son.”

\--

 _Remember to forgive yourself,_ Leia said. He thinks it’s time to take that to heart.

\--

“Where do you want to go,” Poe asks him, pulling his shirt over his head before he turns around to wink at Finn; he’s caught him staring.

“I don’t know, buddy. You’re flying the ship,” he tells him, running his hands over the grass beneath them. There’s a flower growing. It’s slight. Finn wonders what he can do to it with the Force, but doesn’t want to try. He’ll let things grow on their own.

“So… It’s up to me?” Poe asks. Finn doesn’t like the glint in his eye.

“Now that I’m thinking about it,” Finn says, “I _do_ want to know where you’re thinking of.”

Poe clamps his lips together. “But I’m flying the ship, remember?”

Finn squints at him. “If you _dare_ say Jakku—”

“—what’s so wrong about _Jakku—_ ”

“—You’re sleeping outside, tonight. On the hammock, on the grass, I don’t care.”

Poe’s eyes widen. “But it’s cold outside,” he protests.

Finn smirks at him. “Jakku’s pretty warm, from what I remember,” he says, and doesn’t quite manage to hold back the laughter anymore.

\--

Finn catches himself smiling, from time to time, even if it’s for no particular reason, and it’s—odd. None of Poe’s teasing will ever manage to tamp down on the contentment that’s found its way into his chest, either, warming him up like he’s out of the shade. It’s the lack of fear. It’s the knowledge that there aren’t any numbers waiting for him once he steps out of his bedroom, that he can lie down in the middle of the hallway and only have Kes raising an eyebrow at what he’s doing.

It used to be alarming, the fact that he doesn’t have to wake up at a precise 0500 anymore, stripping from his nightclothes to struggle into a uniform like the past few decades that he’d been alive.

(He hasn’t heard the numbers 2 or 1 or 8 or 7 in any formation, either, and it’s all peace. Everything passes him by and he’ll be able to afford being careless; it’s paradise.)

“What are you smirking about,” Poe asks, coming up behind him when Finn’s looking into the mirror, halfway done with putting on his clothes.

“Nothing much,” Finn answers him. It’s mostly true.

Poe huffs, wrapping his arms around Finn’s torso tighter. They stand there for—Finn doesn’t know, _minutes, maybe?_ —before Poe speaks up again.

“I’m glad you’re happy,” he says, and there’s so much sincerity that it startles Finn. “Sometimes I think it’s selfish to bring you _here_ , when we could have gone to anywhere else. You just have to say the word, you know. Pa wouldn’t mind leaving Yavin 4 behind. We could live with him, start over somewhere else. As far away in the galaxy as you’d like.”

“But I like it here,” Finn says, reaching around to press a kiss to Poe’s cheek, “although I’d have to thank you for asking."

Poe grins at him. “If you’re sure,” he says, and shifts in Finn’s grip to kiss him further.

\--

“I made you promise to bring you here, remember?” Finn says, resting his head against Poe’s. “This was—for us. This was what I held on for.”

\--

Finn turns the key over in his hand, feeling the edges of it. He remembers the afternoon that Poe pressed it into his palms, the startling coldness of it, the clarity of what it _meant_ —and how he was afraid of it, trying so desperately to be brave.

If he had the chance—he’s not sure if he’ll go back in time. He doesn’t think that there would have been a better way for everything to play out. Perhaps it’s a futile exercise, imagining.

“How long did you have this key?” Finn asks.

Poe turns to him, gaze settling on the length of it, the rust that made it brittle. “I don’t know,” he tells him. “It could be from before the war, could be after. Does it matter?”

Finn looks down to it, to its primitiveness, thinking of how many years this key would have left to endure. It’s an old thing. He shakes his head. _No_ , he decides, _not really_. Everything decays.

\--

He’s lying on his bed, staring up at the ceiling, when Poe turns to him with a question in his eyes.

“Hey,” Poe says, slightly tentative. “You’re awake.”

Finn hums. “Good evening,” he says, and turns on his side just to watch the way the light falls over Poe’s face, shifting constantly with the wind changing the shape of the trees just outside their bedroom. It’s not quite new territory with Poe, anymore, Finn has already learned what each one of his expressions mean, it’s been long enough. But sometimes he’d rather listen to Poe string out his words carefully, watching his eyebrows furrow along with his thoughts.

Except it’s a benefit, too, knowing what to expect from your partner. Some things just don’t need to be spelled out; this is all them, this slow, mutual understanding that they’d managed to achieve over the years.

“I’m good,” Finn tells him, and relishes in the sight of the joy that spreads over Poe’s face, the shadows changing all the while.

\--

This is what we were fighting for, he thinks, hoping that this was what Leia had wanted. She’d said to him that this was all part of being human, that it was really that brief moment of living that fulfilled it, after the fear passes, after the pain. Finn had underestimated the price of it, but he doesn’t know if he can do anything about that, anymore; the war in his mind is finally beginning to settle.

Or in the very least: it’s a start.

\--

Finn knows that he’d dreamt about this once, all those years ago. That the tree was long rooted in his mind long before he knew of its existence; maybe it was a sign.

Poe is polishing his ship, somewhere close by. The weather’s as humid as ever and Finn loves it, loves the knowledge that it could rain down on them anytime, could soak them both thoroughly wet in the matter of seconds. It’ll be—something nice to come back to, after they’re done travelling. It doesn’t really matter where Poe will steer them, actually— _hope will tell us where to go_.

“I’m still not letting you bring us to Jakku,” Finn jokes at Poe, who’s walking to him with one of the brightest grins Finn has ever seen on his face; he must be excited to finally be steering a ship, even though he doesn’t get quite as restless on Yavin 4. It feels like they’re young again, gravitating towards each other like they did on that hangar. Finn could be 16 or 18 or 22.

“I’ll map the designation out for you,” Poe says, cheeky.

“Take your time,” Finn says to him, his smile all teeth, and presses a kiss to Poe’s knuckles. “I’ll be waiting for you.”   

Poe grins. “You always do.”


End file.
